The goal of the Honors Program is to provide undergraduate students with an enriched academic and intellectual experience both inside and beyond the classroom. In pursuing that goal, we seek to select qualified students who will thrive in the Honors Program.Honors courses move beyond simply learning the content of a regular course and are not simply more difficult versions of their non-honors counterpart. Rather, an Honors course provides creative avenues for students to investigate, question, and discuss academic topics in greater depth and context. An Honors course is an immersive introduction to students to the scholarly approaches, practices, and methods of the associated discipline. For example, the course could help students not only understand how new questions for investigation are formed in a discipline, but also give students practice forming their own new questions for investigation. Clearly, students would need a base understanding of content knowledge to effectively complete such a project. Some courses might then help students either understand how investigations are carried out, carry out their own investigations, analyze results or literature, and generate conclusions. Ideally, at the end of an Honors course, students should have learned how to “think” as a person in that discipline would—think like a biologist, think like a historian, think like someone who analyzes literature. Moreover, students should be encouraged to reflect upon the process of academic reasoning and critical thinking.  An Honors course should help students to connect knowledge from  the classroom to real-world events, issues, problems, and contexts. In order to accomplish this, not only should flexibility of faculty teaching styles and approaches be encouraged, but the learning processes of students should be highlighted and challenged.

 

 

Honors credits are normally limited to SPC courses designated as Honors. However, with approval, students may complete Honors Course Contracts for other courses or complete an Honors Independent Study for undergraduate credit.

 

 

HONORS ELIGIBILITY

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"Honors education is characterized by in-class and extracurricular activities that are measurably broader, deeper, or more complex than comparable learning experiences typically found at institutions of higher education. Honors experiences include a distinctive learner-directed environment and philosophy, provide  opportunities that are appropriately tailored to fit the institution's culture and mission, and frequently occur within a close community of students and faculty." NATIONAL COLLEGIATE HONORS COUNCIL (NCHC)

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Still Have Questions? honors@southplainscollege.edu